Goldfinch
by Eilwen
Summary: An account of Miles’ adjustment to his new life in Germany, his sibling relationship with Franziska and his fall into the influence of von Karma. Spoilers for AA case 4.


Disclaimer: I do not own Ace Attorney.

This story is just a little experimentation of mine. This first chapter gave me an immense headache because I did not want to go into too much detail. I was afraid it might take away from the rest of the story so I tried to keep it as simple and short as possible without being too bare. Future chapters will probably be much lengthier.

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**GOLDFINCH**  
INTRODUCTION: PAST

I cannot tell when I first decided that I wanted to follow my father's footsteps.

I assume it was around the time my mother died. I was four years old. My last memory of her was when she lay on the bed asleep and peaceful. Her absence left a scar in my father's life but we never discussed it. I was still too young to comprehend death and I assumed that she simply travelled far away and someday would return to our welcoming arms. Whenever I asked my father when she would return, he was always silent. It was rare that he did not respond to a question.

I have few memories of him. I honestly did not hold any particularly significant moments. He was always beneath an ocean of cases and trials. Very few moments were spent when I did not think of the heroic life he had in the courthouse, when he was simply _a father_, a man who was doing his best to support us.

There were days when I would come to him crying over mundane things and he would always put his things aside to comfort me. With a smile, he would hold me in his arms until my tears decreased to hiccups and sniffing. The smell of his cologne was comforting, accompanied by the warmth of his shirt and the sound of his breathing. Of course, this was when I was young enough – still too fresh to know that crying was not something adults did.

I came to him sobbing again, one day, holding a torn sheet of green paper. I was never skilled at arts and crafts so when the opportunity came to experiment on the art of origami, I finished the class session as the only student who could not fold a proper crane. The inability to even succeed in _arts and crafts _was humiliating. I had not cried for three years. My heavy breathing and warm wet cheeks felt foreign.

I had taken the paper home to try again. I shut the bathroom door and on the cool tiles next to the bathtub, I folded the paper in the exact method that was shown in school. The sheet had many creases and was wrinkled and stiff from my tears. On my third attempt, I tugged too hard at one of the edges and it ripped neatly in the most wretched and horrid manner. The paper tore so easily, it might as well been toilet paper. Little particles stuck to my fingertips, like feathers from a dead bird. I hated arts and crafts. We never painted with real brushes, just cheap plastic ones or our own fingers. _If I was given a real brush, _I concluded in the bathroom, _I would paint like... Waterhouse or Raphael!_ But then… I had not even coloured with crayons in years apart from during arts and crafts in school again and I was still pretty miserable at it. I loved to look at the pictures in art books found in the public library, but I was not _skilled_ at it. I had no artistic talent, just useless admiration.

I felt the clog in my throat and chest like a swollen balloon in my lungs. _No, a nine-year old is too old to cry_. I had embarrassed myself in class earlier so why should I have to further crush my own dignity? I sniffed loudly and wiped my nose on my sleeve. What if this lack of skill was the same for law? I read my father's books all the time, but what if I was not good at it? What if all I had to give was just the _useless_ admiration – an audience member who could memorise the rules but fail at their actual practice? I stared at the remains of what was once a potential crane before bolting out the door with childish tears as I searched for my father.

In the living room, he brought sheets of paper – used paper from the fax machine, to be exact, that had no more use. He brought two pair of scissors too and laid the items upon the table where I sat still hiccupping from post-tears.

"I was never really good at craft either, but I think I can help make a crane." He cut a near perfect square from the mass of fax papers and began to fold. I watched from the other side of the table as he carefully aligned edges and pressed the paper to form new creases. I memorised his movements and mimicked him.

By the end of the night the entire table was covered in paper cranes and various other creatures like frogs, lions and insects. My pathetic sobbing was reduced to quiet contentment - I folded sheet after sheet. My hands became so used to the motions that I did not even need to concentrate. The sheen from the surface of the fax paper reflected the light from the lamp so the entire table seem to glow white. I told my father what I had been thinking about earlier, about my frustrations over my art skills to the fears of failing in law.

"Miles," he said very seriously, "you must never give in to doubt. You must continue with all your effort and you must believe in yourself. If you cannot believe in yourself, how can you believe in your clients?"

The pad of my thumb traced the outline of a nearby paper crane's wing.

He never told me that he had an important case to deal with that night. It was only the next day did I enter his study to see the man sleeping from overwork. His body was upright in his chair and his pen was still in his hand, but his head was cocked to one side in light sleep. Papers covered the surface of his desk but they were neatly arranged. The room smelled of old paper and there was a warm glow to the place. The lamp beside him created shadows on his face and below his eyes and I noticed wrinkles on his forehead for the first time. It looked completely unnatural. I stood at the doorway with my book in my hands unsure if I should go inside or not. I felt guilty for keeping back his work. Seeing him sleep so uncomfortably made me want to tell him how sorry I was. I was sorry he had to work so hard for both of us. I was sorry I was inept with arts and crafts and depended on him to teach me how to make a crane. I was sorry I even doubted my abilities. I knew telling him then would wake him up so I turned away. I had never seen my father look so tired in his life.

My father's study was a haven. I used to write rubbish sentences with fountain pens on clean paper and sitting on the parquet floor I would admire how the letter _J_ and _L_ appeared with the perfect angles of my script. Eventually my father bought a small desk. The little table with the wooden chair was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I loved every detail of it – the nail that stuck out underneath the table so I had to sit at a particular angle unless I wanted a gash on my leg and the varnished surface that initially smelled incredibly strong. I arranged it with blank pages and books borrowed from my father's bookshelves and I shifted it so that it faced the door like my father's. When it was properly set up, I sat at the chair giddily and placed my hands on the desk the same way my father would. That was my first lawyer's desk.

A single painting hung high next to a bookshelf. A bird innocently gazed at the viewer as it sat on a grey-green box. There was no meaning behind the bird's stare. It was there as long as I could remember. My father told me that he dreamed that one day the bird would fly away and escape the picture frame and venture into the real world. I never argued with his logic even when I argued about the impossibilities of _Superman_ and other action heroes with my friends at school. Superman was fictional but my father real. He was strong without the superpowers and the muscles.

"_I'm going to be a defence attorney, just like my dad!"_

I needed to be strong too.

I needed to be strong when I woke up in the hospital that day. I needed to be strong when the doctor came to me sullenly. The room was filled with Christmas decorations but the lights on the little tree blinked mockingly.

My father was dead. He was shot in the heart.

I needed to be strong at his funeral and when I realised that I would never be able to see him again. I needed to be strong even as I dream about _that_ day every night.

Perhaps my dreams twisted facts. Perhaps everything I thought I saw or heard or felt was a complete lie, but every time I woke up hearing that familiar scream pierce through the silence in my own mind, it could not be anything but the truth. The possibility that all my memories of that day were fabricated seemed to be the only thing that kept me alive. Without my father I was nothing. I was neither dust nor air nor carbon. Without him, I was simply unable to survive in the real world. I lived on his advice, his comforting words and his idealism for justice.

My dreams recorded the claustrophobic heat of the elevator. How long had I been there? I memorised the little grooves on the walls, the smoothness of the door and the glass, the faint metallic smell inside that elevator... My fingers became sweaty, whether from the heat or my nervousness, I don't know. I wiped my hands against my trousers continuously. I was unable to see anything, not even an outline of someone. I listened for any sound. The bailiff's breathing was shallow. My father's breathing was steady and I was reminded of the times when I held close to him, my ear pressed against his chest whenever I cried. This time however, it was not as comforting. It was louder, as if he was concentrating on each breath. Each intake cut through my spine. Where was he in the darkness? Was he beside me or opposite me? My breathing was (I listened)... almost non-existent. I may have been dead all along.

However, it was not these little details that frightened me the most. Days after the doctor came to me, I sat in my bed eating the morning's breakfast of cereal and milk. There was not one moment when I did not think of that December day. I tried to piece every thing in my mind like a puzzle I was trying to solve. The trial of my father's death had already occurred. I had testified that I was unable to remember anything useful. I drank my daily orange juice and nearly choked at the realisation. Like a tape on fast forward, I remembered. The argument between the bailiff and my father. The object at my feet – metal like the elevator door, but warm from being in its holster. My foolish impulsiveness. I wanted them to stop arguing. The gunshot echoed in the room and a scream so loud I was still able to hear it.

_I killed my father._

I needed to be strong. If I was supposed to be strong, I should not cry. But then I could not cry, even if I wanted to.

_----------------------------------_

Lesson 1: _"The past should not hinder your future. Your future should redeem your past."_

The words were simple, but they were the first from Prosecutor Manfred von Karma that were directed to me, six months after the DL-6 incident. He stood in front of a large window as he spoke those words, the sunlight hitting his back, his silhouette creating an appropriately grand figure. He was exactly as I remembered him ever since that day in the courthouse. He intimidated me and I had been furious with him for winning that case against my father but I said nothing. In fact, the case was not even brought up once. My father's rival was a figment of the past. He struck like a cobra for the guilty verdict and succeeded. His words were ice and cut through the thick air like a sword. But that… that was just a simple memory like all the others.

Summer created a heat that brought in insects and the awful feeling of stickiness. I had closed the window to prevent the insects from entering but it left the room with a sickly high temperature. When he entered the room with thick clothes, he looked as if he arrived from a different world. In my shirt and bow tie that crackled when I moved because of too much starch, I was nothing compared to him.

I could not read his expression, but by the determined look in his grey eyes, I knew that he had the ability to read my every thought and emotion, as if they were written in stone.

"_I will take care of you. I will ensure your future."_

That was the promise.

_To become Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth..._

In the fog of summer heat, von Karma's words seemed far away but I nodded without truly knowing why.


End file.
